How to (not) steal an election

Just 37 percent of Americans say they believe the 2024 elections will be honest and open to rightful voters, according to polling by Morning Consult in September. The survey found that Republicans were more likely than Democrats to believe the election will be open but not honest, while Democrats are more likely to expect honesty but not openness when voters head to the polls.

Analysis by international election experts shows that, compared to other countries, U.S. election security is good but not great. The Electoral Integrity Project, an international academic effort begun by a Harvard political science professor in 2012, ranks the United States in about the 79th percentile for election integrity out of 194 countries.

The last two U.S. presidential elections, one of which took place amid pandemic restrictions, raised questions about every step in the electoral process. WORLD has identified some of the most talked-about issues related to election integrity and investigated the vulnerabilities in the system. Check back frequently for updates and links to our reporting as Election Day 2024 draws close. —Lynde Langdon

In this guide

• Voter rolls
• Get-out-the-vote drives
• Voting by mail
• Voting by machine
• Noncitizen voting
• Ballot harvesting and drop boxes
• Tabulation and certification

Voter rolls

Each state maintains a list of active and inactive voters. Anyone on the list is eligible to vote, and names cannot be removed from lists without meeting strict requirements. The National Voter Registration Act requires each state to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters” from the rolls. Federal laws require each voter to be at least 18 years of age, a citizen of the United States, not currently incarcerated, and properly registered.

Each state may determine how many missed elections make a voter inactive and how to maintain its rolls. The NRVA also stipulates that states may not make systematic removals to the voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is called a “quiet period.” To remove someone from the rolls, the NVRA says the voter must provide written confirmation of a change of residency or completion of a notice process. Since most voters do not update their paperwork when they move, states may remove them from the rolls after a predetermined length of time. Each state may also determine how many notices it sends to voters before removing them.

Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia use the help of the Electronic Registration Information Center to keep track of voters who change addresses within the state, move across state lines, duplicate registrations, or die before the election. The system was designed by seven secretaries of state and became operational in 2012. The founders said the goal was to share information across several state systems, using data from departments of motor vehicles to keep better records.

After the 2020 election, eight states joined the system, but seven left since then, citing privacy and security concerns. Each state that withdrew has a Republican governor or majority-Republican legislature. After the 2020 general election and the 2022 midterms, conservative organizations like the Election Transparency Initiative claimed that the rolls still contain inaccurate data. Several states are still cleaning out voter rolls.

Recent news

• Virginia: The commonwealth is one of many states that has begun removing hundreds or thousands of names from the rolls ahead of the 2024 general election. Voting rights groups have sued to stop what they call the “purge program.” Virginia uses voter registration data from the DMV but pulled out of the electronic registration center in 2023. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, issued an executive order in August ordering daily updates to voter lists to remove ineligible names. His office has said the effort will prevent noncitizens from voting, but the Department of Justice in October filed a lawsuit claiming the action violates the 90-day quiet period. In a separate lawsuit over the same issue, voter rights groups allege this could discriminate against immigrants with a legal right to vote if the removals are based on outdated data. It is unclear how many names on the rolls the latest removal affects, but Youngkin’s executive order claims the state removed more than 6,000 names from the rolls in the past two years due to unclear answers to citizenship questions.
• Ohio: In August, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, ordered 155,000 names removed from the voter rolls due to lack of proof of citizenship. In October, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters notified him that some counties were still removing names following third-party challenges, which they say violates the NVRA. LaRose cast a tie vote in one county to keep challenged voters on the rolls since it is so close to the election. He said he is reviewing claims in three other counties. Early voting started Oct. 8.
• South Dakota: On Oct. 9, a notice from the state Department of Public Safety announced 273 people were removed from the voter rolls even though early voting for the general election had already started. The state admitted that an agency mistakenly marked noncitizens as citizens on government forms.
• Oregon: Gov. Tina Kotek ordered the state to stop automatic voter registrations at the DMV because ineligible voters were being added to the rolls. In total, more than 1,500 people were registered in error, and Kotek said the state would investigate whether these were intentional or a clerical error and whether the people had already voted. Under Oregon law, residents must provide proof of citizenship to register to vote. State officials in October said they were looking into seven instances of potential noncitizen voting. The state has more than 3 million registered voters.

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The National Action Network held a Get Out the Vote bus tour that started in New York City last month. Associated Press/Photo by Noreen Nasir

Get-out-the-vote drives

Partisan organizations and corporations may urge eligible citizens to vote through any partisan means. In 2020, roughly 66 percent of the eligible population voted, according to the Pew Research Center, which was a record high. Get-out-the-vote drives aim to boost turnout, especially in battleground states. They can include online calls with advocates for a particular candidate or cause. The Federal Election Commission categorizes polling place transportation, phone banks, and registration events as get-out-the-vote drives. For the general public, tax-exempt entities like churches may be involved as long as they are conducted on a volunteer basis and do not endorse a particular candidate.

In practice, campaigns may use get-out-the-vote drives to sway potential voters. They also target their efforts at getting people to the polls who they think are most likely to vote for a particular candidate. In Pennsylvania, the Harris campaign launched a widespread mobilization drive in September, featuring door-knocking events and appearances with key campaign figures such as second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

At least six states have passed laws restricting get-out-the-vote drives, particularly when they register citizens to vote. Nationally, any organization may pass out voter registration forms. But in Florida, the state legislature passed a bill that increased fines for registering noncitizens, tampering with applications, or impersonating campaign officials. The bill also banned noncitizens from participating in voter drives to register eligible citizens, but a court blocked that provision.

Some get-out-the-vote drives are held in grocery store parking lots, at festivals, or door-to-door. Historically, black churches hold “souls to the polls” events to bus church members to early voting poll locations, particularly on Sundays where allowed. Others are nationally focused. The Republican National Committee has asked regular supporters to vote early so that they can allocate canvassers and resources in areas with low-propensity voters. 

Recent news

• Tesla and X owner Elon Musk announced his PAC will send a $47 check to every swing-state voter who signs a petition in favor of the First and Second Amendments and finds other registered voters to sign. Musk has endorsed former President Donald Trump and has appeared at rallies with him. Since he isn’t telling voters whom to support, it is not illegal.
• The maker of the game Cards Against Humanity will offer up to $100 to people who did not vote in 2020 if they write an apology for not doing so, make a plan to vote, and post a disparaging comment about Trump on social media. The company said the biggest payouts will go to nonvoters in battleground states.

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Mail-in ballots are sorted in Miami-Dade County, Fla., in 2020. Associated Press/Photo by Lynne Sladky, File

Voting by mail

States have myriad requirements, timelines, and procedures for mail-in ballots. Some, like Nevada, California, Colorado, Hawaii, and four others, allow for elections to be conducted entirely by mail. Those states send all registered voters a ballot that they may use or disregard. Other states, like Virginia, require voters to apply for an absentee ballot, asking them to provide a specific reason for why they can’t reach a polling site on Election Day.

The biggest concern that critics of mail-in ballots raise is ensuring that the person for whom the ballot was intended is the person who casts the vote. Republicans fear those additional steps might be used to unfairly sway the election in favor of Democrats—the party that historically has made the most use of the practice. According to research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 46 percent of Democrats reported using mail-in voting in 2022, compared with just 27 percent of Republicans.

Here are the percent of votes cast via mail-in ballots in seven swing states in 2022:

• Arizona: Did not report figures
• Georgia: 6.2%
• Nevada: 56%
• North Carolina: 4.9%
• Michigan: Did not report figures
• Pennsylvania: 23.8%
• Wisconsin: 28.62%

Although Democrats have used mail-in voting far more frequently than Republicans, the challenges the method presents—from election integrity and logistical standpoints—can’t easily be said to favor one party over the other.

Recent news

• One user by the name of whenindoubtsparkle posted a video on TikTok on Friday afternoon claiming that her dead father had received a mail-in ballot while she herself is still waiting on hers. “This is happening,” the user said, showing the envelope to the camera. Videos like this one often show partial or incomplete information, making it difficult to verify the authenticity of the claim. Whenindoubtsparkle, for instance, has blocked out her name and address from the ballot seen in the video, although she claimed the ballot was sent to her family in Washington state.
• According to a case filed before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania by the PA Project Education Fund, the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference, and seven other petitioners, 4,421 mail-in ballots were ultimately disregarded in the leadup to the April presidential primary because of a dating error on the exterior envelope. The groups had hoped to challenge the practice before the election because thousands of ballots will likely go uncounted due to paperwork errors. If the date written on the required, external privacy envelope is incorrect or missing, that ballot is thrown out—even when all the information inside is in order. The court declined to hear the case, stating that it would “neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing law and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election,” in its per curiam order last week.

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A worker wipes down a voting machine during early voting in Chicago. Associated Press/Photo by Charles Rex Arbogast

Voting by machine

The role of voting machines came into sharp focus following the 2020 election when former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Republican campaign lawyer Sidney Powell claimed the machines were being used to siphon votes from President Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Powell attempted to seize machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems in Georgia and other states via a contractual agreement with SullivanStrickler LLC, an IT legal services company.

Dominion strongly denied the claims, and Fox later lost a defamation suit to the company. Fox paid $787.5 million in a blockbuster settlement reached in April 2023. Following a grand jury indictment in Georgia, Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors of having intentionally interfered with election duties.

Concerns about voting machine security persist. On social media sites like TikTok, videos showing the machines’ vulnerabilities have gathered millions of views. One video, shared by podcast commentator Patrick Ben-David on YouTube, delves into whether the machines can be hacked.

“[In] every single independent study where we have had access to voting machines, 100 percent of the voting machines have been hacked. ‘Unhackable’ doesn’t exist,” Harri Hursti, a cybersecurity expert said on the podcast.

Hursti demonstrated on camera that he could use a USB drive to manipulate the function of a voting machine.

According to the Pew Research Center, 70 percent of voters used hand-marked ballots in 2022, 23 percent used machines that physically marked a paper ballot, and only 7 percent of voters lived in areas that used electronic means to input and record election results. In 2022, that 7 percent was made up of counties in Texas, Tennessee, New Jersey, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Indiana.

Recent news

In North Carolina, the Cumberland County Board of Elections recently conducted an evaluation of the county’s voting machines. According to local news reports, the county evaluated the 99 machines it plans to use across its 77 precincts. Bill Helms, IT director for the board, told local reporters that there were “no concerns” with the machines’ performance.

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A news conference in favor of a citizens-only voting law in Ohio in 2022 Associated Press/Photo by Julie Carr Smyth, File

Noncitizen voting

Conservatives have expressed concern over low bars to registration that they believe noncitizens could use to participate in federal elections illegally. In recent months, Republicans in the House of Representatives have focused on perceived vulnerabilities in the 1993 Motor Voter Registration Act, also known as the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

In an attempt to increase voter participation, the act requires states to give driver’s license applicants the chance to register to vote in federal elections. While states have varying requirements, many driver’s license forms do little more than ask applicants to affirm their citizenship without presenting any proof.

A portion of the Virginia driver's license application Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles

Of the seven swing states that will likely decide the 2024 presidential election—Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—four of them have applications that closely resemble Virginia’s (shown above). Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina require applicants to bring proof of citizenship. (Georgia and North Carolina do not have paper form applications.)

This year, Republicans hoped to address the issue with legislation such as the Safeguard Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, but the bill stalled in the Senate, where Democrats hold a majority. The SAVE Act would have mandated states to require proof of citizenship for voter registration.

Democrats opposed to the bill point out that noncitizen voting is already illegal. They claim that Republicans have no evidence to suggest noncitizen voting happens on a large enough scale to change the outcome of an election—especially a presidential one.

Republicans have responded by pointing to evidence such as Georgia’s 2022 noncitizen audit. The report found that as many as 1,634 noncitizens attempted to register to vote in the state that year. None of them succeeded, according to the Georgia secretary of state.

Recent news

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson argues there is an insufficient understanding of the scope of the problem because Congress has not established clearer rules for enforcing the prohibition on noncitizen voting. Speaking before the Republican National Lawyers Association in May of this year, Johnson pointed out that tens of millions of immigrants had crossed the southern border under the Biden administration and ultimately evaded confrontation and capture by U.S. Customs and Border Protections. “If just one out of a hundred of these people vote, you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of votes,” Johnson said.

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A ballot drop box in Troy, Mich., in 2020 Associated Press/Photo by Paul Sancya

Ballot harvesting and drop boxes

Ballot harvesting is the practice of collecting ballots and delivering them to polls, election offices, or state-approved drop boxes. It is a legal practice but with specific guardrails. When a voter is unable to cast a ballot in person or mail it in, he or she may give it to someone else to do so.

Not all states allow ballot harvesting. In Arizona, only a family member or caregiver may deliver the ballot. California allows anyone to deliver a ballot but bans payment for ballot harvesting. In Arkansas, a designated bearer may only deliver the ballot directly to a county clerk, must show a photo ID, and must sign an oath that the action is legal. Nine states and the District of Columbia do not specify any rules for ballot harvesters. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 35 states allow the practice.

In many other states, organizations can coordinate ballot pickups. In states that allow ballot harvesting, no designee is allowed to intimidate a voter, influence a decision, or fill out a ballot for the voter, which is known as ballot stuffing. Churches are often used for ballot harvesting drives. Since they are tax-exempt nonprofits, houses of worship may not intervene with a political campaign, but this status still allows them to host nonpartisan voter education events, registration drives, transportation to the polls, and ballot drop-offs.

After the 2020 election, activist Dinesh D’Souza claimed that countless paid ballot harvesters illegally collected ballots and placed them in drop boxes in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In his documentary 2,000 Mules, D’Souza argued those ballots changed the election results from a Trump victory to a Biden one. Much of the evidence presented is based on anecdotal or unverified security camera footage. The publisher pulled the film from its platforms in May.

Since 2020, some states installed security cameras around these boxes, which are locked and inaccessible except by approved officials. In recent election law changes, Michigan requires at least one drop box per municipality. The latest U.S. Election Assistance Commission guidance states that all official drop boxes must have a lock and tamper-evident seal. They must also have staff or video monitoring.

Recent news

• In July, the Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a 2022 decision that banned drop boxes.
• In March, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill that bans ballot harvesting. Civil rights groups quickly sued, saying the bill violated voters’ right to choose who helps them vote, especially if they have a disability. In September, a federal judge blocked enforcement of the ban.
• In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law that prohibits third-party groups from ballot harvesting.
• A court ordered a new election in the 2023 Bridgeport, Conn., mayoral primary after it uncovered ineligible ballot harvesters cast ballots for other people.

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An election worker gathers ballots for tabulation in Phoenix in 2022. Associated Press/Photo by Matt York, File

Tabulation and certification

Most states use machines to count votes, but what the machines read varies by state. This year, the majority of states are using machines to scan paper ballots.

Electronic ballot return, also known as online voting, is practiced in 31 states but reserved for only certain voters, typically those in the military, overseas, or with disabilities.

The machines can flag duplicate ballots if someone voted by mail and then again in person. They also flag missing signatures or inconsistent identification information if applicable. After the count is in, it’s up to the county elections boards to process the vote yet again, reviewing ballots and certifying the machine tabulation was correct. Most county election officials simply pass along the results to the state, but the practice varies across the nation. In some states, a single elected official certifies the results, and in others, a state election board must certify.

Throughout the country, most canvassing board members are elected except in Michigan, where the state political parties appoint two Republicans and two Democrats to serve in every county. Once canvassing is complete, the board confirms all ballots are accurately counted and submits the tabulation to the secretary of state or the equivalent election authority to certify and send to the governor. In a presidential election, this also determines which candidate receives the Electoral College votes. Each state has a deadline to certify results so that Congress may approve the electoral count by Jan. 6. If a majority of the appointed or elected officials refuse to certify results, it delays the process and triggers recounts or audits.

Then, on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December, electors for the winning presidential candidate will sign another certification for the state’s Electoral College votes. These are typically partisan members, one for each electoral vote, chosen ahead of time. They may only sign the affidavit if their candidate is the certified winner of the state. That affidavit is then sent to the National Archives and to Congress for federal approval.

Recent news

Recent changes in Georgia demanded that precincts conduct a hand count of ballots after the machines tabulate to ensure the number of ballots cast and ballots counted match. The poll workers would not tabulate votes, only tally the number of ballots. A judge on Tuesday evening temporarily blocked the new rule’s implementation, citing a lack of adequate time for training polling workers.

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